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Story:Kings of Strife/Part 48
Part Forty-Eight The day after Queen Vainia’s army had started to march to Inusia, Leader Rin gathered the Eternal Corps and the group left Shorekeep for their mission. The plan had been discussed with him and Vainia shortly after she gave the Eternal Corps their mission, and Baron Casvaal of Intelligence had spoken to Rin much longer, in order to share the details completely. Since the Shorican loss at the Battle of Icarun, a faction of disgruntled Shorican citizens had erupted beneath the underbelly of a few major cities like pimples rising beneath skin. Calling themselves the SSR – the Seventh Shorican Restoration faction – the group was born with the crude notion that Vainia had taken over their previous group, Fifth Brine, and drove it in a completely wrong direction. ‘A bunch of ignorant, power-hungry fools,’ Leader Rin had thought to himself on the SSR after hearing about them. ‘It matters not who holds the power, as long as it is not Inusia. As long as Shorica is free.’ Liberation was liberation. The Eternal Corps were moving in swiftly to eradicate the SSR and safeguard Shorica once Vainia left. Baron Casvaal had heard from his various spies – of which Rin was sure there were hundreds – that SSR was situated in the forests of northern Shorica, above where the ruins of Phenicks lay, and that they were planning to move in on Shorekeep very soon. The mission of the Corps was to move in and ambush them before they could make any conclusive moves, and they had to move before anyone noticed that Vainia’s army did not actually mean to march through Shorica. That was a fact known only to Rin, the Revolutionary Barons, and Vainia herself. The army was going to march out of sight of Shorekeep, a few miles further past the horizon, and then take to the sea in a set of pre-prepared ships that would take the entirety of the army to the shores ahead of the Shorica-Inusian border. Transportation in this way cut the travel time of the army in half, and saved their much-needed strength. If the SSR never saw Vainia’s army march past them, it would not take them long to figure out what happened and attempt to get in contact with the Inusians. Though such an option would likely not help their revolution, it was well known that the SSR despised Vainia and her politics more than anything – so they would stop at nothing to impede her plans. A day had passed since Vainia’s army marched away from Shorekeep, and six members of the Eternal Corps stood in a dense area of the Shorican Wilds, light snow falling around them all. A tall, densely forested hill rose ahead of them, past which the SSR were camped in one of their largest enclosures – or so reported the single spy Casvaal employed to go with the Corps, dressed conspicuously in black when all of the others wore khaki bodysuits and silver cloaks. A single pair of footprints broke the snow leading forward, up the gentle hill and beyond, into the whiteness of the forest. “Are you sure sending just Posmos was a wise move, Leader Rin?” Allen Trius, a tall youth with long dark hair, stepped up to Leader Rin’s side and looked up at his commander. “There’s supposed to be a huge camp down there.” A laugh came from the back of the Corps’ small gathering, and Trius looked back to see a fair-skinned Corps member fold his arms beneath his cloak. “You newbies really don’t know much about that kid, do you?” asked Dolfh Rveld, an original founding member of the Eternal Corps. He was younger than Rin by at least a decade, but he was still a handful of years older than the five new members of the Corps’ second incarnation, and that simple fact gave him a superiority complex of sorts when it came to his comrades. “We know,” the hooded Corps member said. Known only as J. Horn, he was of the more mysterious new additions, but he was a ridiculously skilled marksman – and a laconic one, as well. “He’s stronger than any of us.” “Indeed,” growled Leader Rin, his jaw tightly set and his eyes set straight forward, into the forest ahead. “He will not fail.” Moritaka Posmos had been sent ahead to perform reconnaissance, but his mission was twofold; not only to investigate, but to eradicate. As the most capable Eternal Corps member, there was virtually no chance of him failing. When the boy drafted himself into Vainia’s army mere days after her initial riots in Shorekeep, only Rin and Azur Atrai – one of the Corps members who died in the massacre of Vainia’s parents in Mortis – had existed as members of the Eternal Corps. The others came after, and all of them trained together at the same time, under the tutelage of Rin and Vainia’s Knight, Constantus Veit. Out of all of the trainees, including Rin himself, nobody had been able to hold a candle against Veit; nobody but Moritaka Posmos. The boy was incredibly powerful. He was proficient with any weapon, but especially a sword. Strong, fast, and calm, despite his age and body type, Posmos quickly proved to be the perfect warrior, and his only goal was “to serve Vainia”. Moritaka Posmos was the embodiment of an Eternal Corps soldier, and Tlerius Rin was afraid of him. “He comes,” a female voice said from Rin’s left. Alma Venu had spoken, an incredibly skilled and dangerous woman, despite her blindness. The handicap came at almost no expense to her, for her other senses were so radically jacked up in response to her disability that she was more observant than any of the other Corps members. Just as she said, within seconds Rin could hear light footsteps in the snow getting closer to the group. ‘Already?’ Rin thought to himself with a darkening brow. Posmos had left the group just fifteen minutes ago, and there was no possible way he had wiped out a compound full of rebels within fifteen minutes, not even with his skills. “Stay here,” Rin said, holding a hand out behind him to command the Corps. He stepped forward, being careful to walk in the already-made imprints that Posmos left behind, though his boots were larger than Posmos’ had been. As he ascended the hill slowly and cautiously, Rin pulled out a long, jagged knife from the side of his pants and held it just beneath his cloak. A long black rifle was strapped to his back, but he did not want his gunfire to ring out so near to the enemy base, especially if an enemy had captured Posmos and was retracing his steps. Near the top of the hill, Rin lowered his center of gravity and held his knife out in front of him, ready to strike, as he hid behind a tall and wide tree. He kept his blade from singing through the air when the oncoming figure spoke. “For the Queen’s glory,” a male voice simply said. A moment later, peeping out from the side of the tree he stood behind, Rin could see the shining multiflourescence of Posmos’ trademark hat. “I thought I told you to take that stupid scarf off,” Rin growled as he slid his knife back into its holster and stood to his full height. Posmos walked into his full vision then. The boy had a disinterested, youthful face and a slim body, one that bordered even on androgynous. He was not wearing his silver cloak, and his well-fitting khaki underclothes were decorated here and there by blood. A reflective green scarf sat on top of his head, and beneath the scarf trailed out short bangs of unruly blond hair. “I did,” Posmos simply said as Rin returned his folded silver cloak to him, and the blond boy started to put it on over his head. “This is a new one.” “Whatever. What happened down there? You took care of the entire camp?” “Yes, I did, but that was not the entire SSR. It could not have been.” His cloak now returned to its default position over his shoulders, Posmos unstrapped the medium-length blade that was belted to his waist and now secured it over his chest, allowing the deep wooden handle of the blade to poke up from his shoulder. Now completely returned to his uniform state, the Corps member started walking down the hill nonchalantly. “Wait, what do you mean the entire SSR wasn’t there?” Rin frowned at the casual nature of his operative and followed him briskly, no longer bothering to shadow in his footsteps. “Where were they? Did they escape?” “They were never there, I believe. It appeared as if a great many people fled hours ago. Most of the tents and furnishings were empty.” “Empty tents…? This makes no sense.” The wind started to pick up in Tlerius Rin’s ears, a wind he remembered from the turbulent waves of the Forgotten Sea and the stormy, froth-covered rocks of the Lord’s Straits. This was a wind that preceded a storm. Rin had never survived a storm without loss. The two arrived back at the gathering of the Corps soon after, and were greeted with the lifeless, dulled fall of a corpse sinking to the snow. Every Corps member jolted in alert except for Moritaka Posmos, and as the other six warriors around him reached for their weapons collectively, he pointed a pale hand towards a body in the midst of the group, clothed only in black. “The spy has died.” New Corps member Alma Venu rushed to the corpse of the official spy, a corpse that had fallen and landed lifelessly inconspicuously, despite being in stark contrast to the white ground, the gray forest, and the silver sentinels within it. Venu bent down, her hands searching quickly in the snow before touching and grabbing the body. The female spy looked dead, with her pale countenance and mute mouth, but especially now she appeared to be a cadaver – her eyes were rolled to the back of her head, and thick cream-colored froth playfully creeped out from the corners of her mouth. “She is dead,” Venu confirmed. “Her heart is not beating.” The wind continued to blow, and Rin stood still in the midst of the storm, just as he did on his ships for years and years. He could feel the froth encroaching in the horizon, and distant rumbles of thunder disturbed the sky, but he stood still, staring forward with his jaw tight; his mind racing. “I think she killed herself, Leader Rin,” Posmos said quietly. The air, frigid and saturated with death, was quiet, and Moritaka spoke as if he wanted to preserve such a peace. Most of the Corps stood around the body, silent, but a number of silver-cloaked warriors stood around with their weapons drawn and their eyes constantly searching the forest for a potential assassin. Moritaka’s suggestion took even them by surprise. “It is likely,” Venu chimed in. “I do not feel any wounds on her body.” Rveld took a step towards Rin and Posmos, who stood at the base of the hill and were still some feet away from the circle and the body. “Did any of the enemy get away, Posmos? Could you have missed someone, a scout somewhere or even a sniper?” “No.” Posmos looked disinterested and distant as ever, but he was as confident in his skills as a predatory beast would be in hunting mice. “I erased them all, but there were only twenty or so men. The majority of the SSR were not there.” “Twenty or so men, he says” Rveld muttered, his dandelion yellow teeth biting hard onto his lips. “In only fifty minutes. As if that’s child’s play.” “But why would the spy kill herself?” Allen Trius stood farthest away from the body, but his eyes were glued to the motionless face, disturbed. “I don’t get it. How could she even do that?” “I wouldn’t put it past members of the Intelligence Division to carry poison around on them, in case they were caught doing something they weren’t supposed to,” chimed in Horn. He was one of the three Corps members aiming a weapon at the forest around them, alert and observant. “Nobody knows what those snakes are up to in the shadows.” ‘Caught doing something wrong – that has to be it,’ Rin realized with widening eyes. The storm had finally broken on the horizon, and he felt a sense of relief that came in having control over his ship, its men, and their destiny. Now he had the choice of diving right into the storm or turning around, evading it, and seeking calmer waters. ‘I am a man of Shorica,’ he reminded himself, and he pulled his long black knife out from its sheath on his thick leg. ‘We do not seek safe waters. Only righteous ones, with prosperity and strength on their cold, hard tips.’ The provocative call of metal on metal, rehearsed and drilled before for hours on end with the group, summoned the attention of every Corps member. Rin stepped forward grimly, his knife idly twirling in his calloused hands. “She knew,” he started, “and so did the entire Intelligence Division. Especially that bastard child Casvaal.” Posmos looked at his Leader with leery eyes at the disrespect of the Revolutionary Baron, but he said nothing. Rin continued. “He knew, and the SSR knew, that we were coming. They must know everything. This was a setup to bait us away from the city, and she killed herself as soon as her job was done.” “What could they want with the city when Queen Vainia is marching to Inusia?” Long haired feminine Trius frowned deeply, and could not decide if he wanted to stare at the dead spy or his Leader. Either way, he looked like he was going to be ill, and soon. “The city is what they want,” Rveld said, half with grim acceptance and half with disbelief. “They played us like a bunch of fools, and we played right along.” “No,” Rin growled, his fists growing ever tighter. The storm loomed on the horizon, and he started to breathe heavily. ‘My sons are in the city, my strong sailor sons, because I forbade them from joining Vainia’s army. To protect them. I will not let them be lost.’ He looked up to the Corps members to find all of them staring at him, expectedly. To hesitate like this was commonplace for thoughtful Tlerius, but the Corps could tell that this was no simple squad exercise he was thinking over. “They will not take the city. We will beat them back. We will crush them all. We will hold Shorica for our Queen!” Every member of the Eternal Corps slammed their fist on their chest at the same time, even disinterested Moritaka Posmos, and the forest clearing rang with the slam of flesh to rib. “For the Queen’s glory,” they all exclaimed in agreeance, and as they did Rin knew that his ship would sail true and strong. ‘I have sons to protect, and sons I will go to war with,’ he realized with a hint of a smile, ‘And they are all unending.’ ***** The Inusian city, lit up in the waning light of the twilight, stood atop a hill and glistened, lights blinking in windows and roadways and skyscrapers touching shoulders as they reached higher, higher into the air with concrete fingers. As Vainia stood and stared up at the high peaks of the industrial and urban city, she knew they would never reach high enough to escape her wrath, or trace the frills of her dresses, or even see the beginning of her ambition. Her Knight had been nowhere to be found, not in the countryside of Shorica or the smoldering ruins of Troia village. Her army had moved across the nation in two and a half days, in a barely-organized and unorthodox mixture of hasty marching and emigrating amongst boats. A stripling army of bluecoat soldiers stood all around the perimeter of Morshia, forcing themselves into a human wall that extended all around the city with a diameter of miles. ‘There is no wall that can stand against me,’ Vainia thought to herself, ‘Especially not one made of man.’ “An officer comes,” Baron el Divrus said as he stepped towards his queen. Him, Vainia, and a handful of officers within her army stood, removed from the army standing staunch and adamantly behind them. An army at her back and an army in front, and neither of them were moving. The two had stood at a standstill for the better part of an hour now, and finally someone was being sent to converse with her. Vainia nodded at Tasshon, and he stepped back. The queen rested her hands on top of her sheathed rapier, the tip of its protected blade landing right on the ground, and she started to chant wordlessly. The Inusian officer stood on the hood of a small navy blue buggy that drove roughly on the immaculately paved black highway. The highway only extended to the border of Inusia and Shorica; likewise, the officer’s bravado likely only breathed on Inusian soil. When his buggy stopped and the bluecoat jumped down from the roof of his transport vehicle, he puffed up his chest but did not move. Vainia sighed, waiting a moment before twirling up her rapier and holding it at her side as she started to walk towards him. The first stage of her incantation was completed. Two Crystals jingled like bells in the pouch she kept at the back of her waist, and her heavy coat undulated behind her, tracing symbols of its own in the air. None of her officers followed her as she walked to meet the Inusian officer, though he had only stopped some thirty paces off from her advance forces. They met out of earshot of both armies. “You have foolishly marched upon Inusian soil,” the officer barked as he looked down at Vainia with a scowl. “If you turn back around now, you will not be totally annihilated.” “Only totally subjugated?” Vainia looked up to the tall, pale-skinned man, and rolled her eyes. “Do not attempt to lie to me, bluecoat.” “Why, you really are just a child,” the officer said with thinning eyes. He was of middle age, with bags under his eyes, and on his mantle Vainia could see his name. She did not bother to keep it in her memory for more than a second. “The people of Shorica really are being led to their deaths by a child.” “I do not have time to listen to your foolishness, Inusian dog. Surrender all your troops and evacuate the citizens of Morshia immediately, or they will be slaughtered.” The bluecoat looked at her for a moment with squinting eyes before breaking out into mocking laughter. “You’re serious? You’re making demands here, to me? What are you on, kid?” “I will be stepping on your corpse, if you do not comply. I will take Morshia, or I will raze it to the ground, but either way my forces will not suffer a single casualty. The choice is yours, and all of your men’s lives depend on your choice. Make it wisely.” “How do you expect me to take you seriously, kid?” The bluecoat tilted his head and smiled mockingly down at Vainia, all pretenses of defense gone from his body, and as he spoke Vainia started to wordlessly chant once again. He did not notice. “You guys lost. Your group’s entire career has been spent running from justice, because you know you’re in the wrong. You’re a paragon of terrorism and slavery, and you’re leading an army of thousands to fight against a free nation of billions. Inusia owns this world, kid. There hasn’t been a successful fight against Inusia in almost two thousand years, and you think you can just come in and make demands with an army like that?” The second phase of her spell was shorter, and she was able to complete it without moving her lips. She finished a mere second after the officer stopped speaking, and she looked up to him with complete calmness and controlled fury. He did notice the slight glow her hands were taking. “No empire is eternal, because mine hasn’t been established yet. There is no freedom in your regime. Your people do not vote. Your decisions do not benefit the people or seek to raise them out of poverty.” She shook her head with a distasteful frown. “I do not have the time for this. Go back to your commanders and your soldiers and tell them all of my offer. I want them all to laugh at me. Know that a million deaths will rest on your shoulders with more weight than that despicable blue mantle you wear with false pride, Inusian dog.” She left the officer there as he stared at her with lips opened of anger, and she started the third phrase of her incantation, the absolute largest she had ever summoned. This one had seven phrases required to use it, and without the power of the two Crystals behind her, it would be too powerful for her to ever dream of attempting. ‘My power grows into timelessness, and only those who know will be saved from my wrath.’ Her officers were looking uneasy as she returned to them with a focused glare and her hands behind her back. One of them, a short man with a cleft chin and biceps like poles, looked behind her and frowned. “Queen Vainia, they didn’t give in, did they?” He looked cynical. Vainia glanced at the man and squinted her eyes as her third phrase finished. “Colonel Harper,” Tasshon reminded her. “Right,” she said with a calm nod. “No, of course not, Colonel Harper. That is their loss.” She started to chant wordlessly again as she turned back towards the city. “No matter how I look at it,” another of the chief officers said with a sigh, “We don’t have enough men to siege this city.” “They have no walls!” Colonel Harper said, his face painted an irritated tan. “All we have to do is break through their defensive line and infiltrate the city, and we riot like was done in Shorekeep. It will be ours before long.” The fourth phrase finished, and the sun started to definitively fall into the edge of the sky. “And what if they bring out airships? We have artillery, but no real anti-aircraft measures.” The only female officer shook her head and played with her bun of dark hair. “They will tear our infantry apart in minutes.” “They do have a wall,” the first chief officer said with another sigh, “but it is made of men. We break through one point, the others flank us and move through the city. It’s honestly kind of a genius idea for siege defense, considering the concept of casualties doesn’t matter to those Inusian dogs.” “It’s an old tactic,” Tasshon answered. “I’ve read about it before.” “All they have is old tactics,” the female officer rebuked, “Since no one’s been foolish enough to attack an Inusian city head on in thousands of years.” “Brave enough.” Tasshon cut his eyes at the tall female officer before turning his inquisitive gaze back to Vainia, who was motionless in concentration. “The word you meant to say is brave enough, I believe.” The fifth phrase of the largest rune spell Vainia ever attempted finished, and she felt a weight drag upon her body as if she were covering herself in armor of chains again. Her eyes began to sting, and the glow from her hands was almost tangible. “Their wall is moving,” Colonel Harper stammered, disbelief dripping from his words as tangibly as sweat dripped down his brow. “No, the wall is not moving. Their troops are advancing.” The female officer gulped audibly, and toyed with the long black rifle in her hands. “I will get the vanguard moving,” the first officer breathed. “You won’t!” Tasshon grabbed onto the khaki sleeve of the first officer and glared at him. “Queen Vainia has ordered that all troops stand firm in formation to match their wall.” “They’re coming to take us, and you would have us sit still and wait for them to arrive?” “Your queen would have you stand, bravely, until she gives her next order.” The first officer, a small-eyed man with long, greying hair, looked down at Tasshon with a toothy glare and an upturned nose. He only had three teeth, and two of his fingers were missing, but the spirit of malice appeared to fill out the empty fingers of his gloves for but a moment. Tasshon did not waver. The sixth phase finished, and the ground beneath the city of Morshia began to glow with a light golden light, barely strong enough to shine over the concrete and through the dirty shrubbery in the city. Dark clouds started to gather over the metropolis, and the atmosphere started to darken much quicker than before as the sun set. Vainia trembled. The troops behind the officers, now that they could see the Inusian army rushing towards them, began to audibly mummer and shout. “This is a real war, and I would rather have men screaming at my sides, fighting bravely, more than I would like to wait and be picked off by Inusian dogs.” The first officer exhaled strongly. “We will go down in history like fools who died on a doomed mission,” the female officer said, her eyes downtrodden despite the strong, gapless stance she held her rifle in. “All of us dying on our feet like cowards.” “How can I expect history to remember my name when my own queen doesn’t?” Colonel Harper sighed. The Inusian army marched onwards; the seventh phrase of Vainia’s spell finished; her hands glowed brightly with golden luminescence; despite the darkness, the city began to glow with a light that was decidedly not neon; her eyes, also golden, began to drop tears of blood. “There are no walls that can stop our conquest,” she breathed, “Not even one that moves.” After dropping her rapier to the ground, she raised her hands into the air, fingertips trailing light behind them. “I will conquer even the skies! Let the heavens fall!” A sound like thunder slamming against itself burst through the dark skies, and for a moment everyone – Inusian, Shorican, military, or civilian – looked up to the skies. A golden light started to shine from the obsidian clouds like rays of sunlight, and beneath the ground of Morshia City an equally bright light rose up to the sky. Like a pillar of fury, the golden light fell down from the sky slowly, lingering in the air before slamming into the city like a thin yet massive lance. It widened, widened, widening for miles as it took up the sky and all of the city. Before a minute had passed, the light widened until it took over the entirety of the city’s diameter, burning intensely in the darkness and filling the world with ruthless golden light. Every soldier stood in place, staring slack-jawed, their weapons pointing at the ground. The golden javelin persisted and the world stood still for a handful of minutes before it started to fade. As slowly as it fell, the light narrowed and faded from the sky downwards, until only a faint golden glow shimmered over the ground, and in the place of the heavenly lance stood a smoldering city of burnt, destroyed ruin. All the world was silent, and as the golden light faded, smoke drifted upwards from what used to be one of the largest cities known to man. The Inusians lowered their weapons. ***** “I’ve finally found you, you incompetent waste of flesh!” The Lance Knight hurled her massive weapon into a dune of hardened snow, and as the lance slammed through it and into the ground, an explosion of snow and debris rocketed in the air. The Lancer rushed after her weapon, not encumbered by her massive armor or helmet in the slightest. As she recovered her weapon, a navy blue blur of movement streaked to the side, towards another hill of sand on top of rock. The streak moved slower than before, and it left behind a trail of small droplets of blood on the snow. “There is nowhere else to run,” the Lance Knight bellowed as she gripped her gigantic drill-like lance and walked towards the dune, her weapon easily cutting a trail through the snow behind her. “You have eluded me for months, you wretch, but not even the barren Frozen Isles of the north can keep you hidden from my righteous wrath!” “Have mercy on me, sister,” a wounded whisper pleaded from amongst the snow. The Lancer growled in irritation; her prey was speaking from all directions again in an attempt to mislead her. It would not work. “I have been wronged and led astray.” “The only thing that wronged you was your own incompetence,” the Lancer retorted, “and I will crush it out of you.” “You don’t understand!” A spectre clad in an oversized navy robe burst up from the ground to the side of the heavy Knight, its barely-visible skin unearthly white from the snow it was conjured from. “You never understand, because you’re so perfect!” The Lancer lazily slapped her armored hand to the side, smashing apart the snow clone and sending its founding materials dropping lifelessly to the ground. “There is only one with perfection, and it is not I.” “Then listen to me, sister!” A hooded face emerged from the sand dune the Lancer was walking towards, and though its eyes were shadowed, it was easy to see the desperation on the avatar’s countenance. The Lance Knight paused. “The Leader says that he knows and sees all – so why would he send us on missions, knowing we would fail? Either his vision is not perfect, or he is cruel indeed!” “Shut up!” The Knight punched with her free hand, destroying the face of manipulated snow and the rock foundation beneath it. “I will not tolerate criticism of my Lord, especially not from a traitorous coward!” “There is a reason why he recycles us when we begin to fail or doubt him,” another figure of snow said as it rose up from behind the Lance Knight. Another one soon formed from a dune left out of reach by the Knight, and both spectres spoke simultaneously. “Our Leader is not omniscient, and considering the fact that we do all of his dirty work, he is not omnipotent, either!” “I said to cease your blasphemy!” The Knight whirled around and elbowed the spectre close to her before walking briskly to the one atop the dune. The surviving snow clone did not hesitate even as the Lancer advanced towards it. “Haven’t you ever wondered why he is doing all of this? You’re not stupid! How benevolent can our Leader truly be for mankind if he seeks to slaughter most of it? Why does it involve manipulating the entire world and forbidding us from human lives? Why did – ” As the Lance Knight swung her gargantuan weapon, instantly silencing the puppet of snow, she heard footsteps behind her, finally. She turned, her glare permeating through her horned helmet, and faced the Vapor Knight head-on in the ravaged plain of snow and dunes. “Why did C0 desert us? Haven’t you ever thought of that?” The Lancer screamed. Ripping her helmet off with one hand, she used the other to hurl her lance right at the Vapor Knight’s body. V8 could not possibly have moved fast enough to dodge the thrown weapon, but she made herself intangible by altering her state of matter to that of a gas for but a moment, her glowing golden eyes squinting as she did so. The action was extremely taxing on her body, much more so now that she had no Crystal in her possession, so after the lance had completely ran through and passed her, she returned to tangible solidity and her knees buckled. Right after the lance flew by, the Lance Knight crashed right into her ‘sister’. The armored Knight slammed into the robed one like a sack of bricks, sending her crying out to the hard, snowy ground. “Don’t you ever mention her name around me again!” The Knight punched V8 in the face with her armored gloves, sending teeth and blood flying into the dirty snow and staining it further with her angry tears. “I think about her every day! You have no right to question the Lord, nor C0, nor my love for her! She left me twice! We were more than lovers, more than sisters – we were two sides of the same coin, separated only to be joined forever with the evolution of mankind, but she left me!” The Lancer stopped punching for a moment to look down at the Vapor Knight’s face, her own visage panting and dripping with hot, frustrated tears that melted away her fierceness. The fallen Knight had a ruined face; one of her eyes was beaten shut, her forehead was bleeding from a cut above her temple, her almost-removed lower jaw was a mess of spittle, blood, and broken teeth, and her nose was broken at almost a ninety degree angle. She gasped for breath and shook with anguish, yet still struggled to speak. “She never stopped loving you,” the Vapor Knight whispered, barely audible and even more difficult to understand, though she spoke slowly. “But she saw the truth… behind us, this world, and the Leader.” Two armor-covered, trembling hands took hold of the Vapor Knight’s throat and started to throttle the life out of her. As breath failed her, the Vapor Knight’s only open eye kept glowing golden, and continued to stare right into the Lance Knight’s only visible golden eye. “Be silent,” the Lance Knight whispered as she continued to cry. “Now and forever. We were meant to be together forever, and she betrayed me. She betrayed us all. The Lord is never wrong. All is for my Lord. All is for my Lord. The word of my Lord is truth. All nonbelievers must perish. Humanity must perish to transcend. All is for my Lord. All is for my Lord. No power may ever threaten him.” She did not remove her oppressive grip from her sister’s thin, pale neck until a light flashed in the sky, reflecting the Lancer’s shadow over the snow in front of her. She turned, curious, only to see a thin pillar of golden light raining down from the sky, across the Frigizi Channel and slightly off to the southwest. The light was familiar, and powerful, and shone as bright as truth to the Lance Knight. She stood, breathless, in awe, with blood dripping down from her hands. There was only silence. ...End of Part Forty-Seven. <- Previous Page | Main Page | Next Page->